Identifying the biographies was not exactly easy, as the various committees at RUSA (and at both the Lending Round Table and the Division of Public Libraries before RUSA) have not agreed through time on how to report the Notable Books. A single alphabetical list that did not distinguish between fiction and nonfiction was issued until 1974, when the committee divided the titles into the two categories. Someone must not have liked the idea, for the dividing into fiction and nonfiction did not reappear again until the 1987 list. Most years since then are divided, but some are not. I am happy to see that the most of the recent lists do separate.

Before 1970, the committee did not write annotations. I had to look at a variety of online library catalogs to identify the subjects of many of the books without subtitles. The titles alone were often insufficient. Some possible biographies turned out to be fiction. Some that I suspected were novels turned out to be biographies, histories, or other nonfiction topics. I'm glad recent lists are more informative and of more help to readers' advisers.

For my purposes, I am excluding autobiographies and memoirs.

Biographies by the Years

The number of biographies in Notable Books have decreased since a high in the 1970s, but may go up slightly again in the 2000s.

59 in the 1950s

53 in the 1960s

67 in the 1970s

33 in the 1980s

21 in the 1990s

21 in the 2000s (through 2007)

Individual years can go way up and down. There was only one notable biography in 1991, 1992, 1997 and 2001. There were twelve in both 1950 and 1973.

The Lists Reflect Their Times

According to the introduction of 50 Years of Notable Books, the first list, called "Outstanding Books," was compiled by the Lending Round Table in 1944, a time of war. Among the titles on that first list were the following:

How to Think about War and Peace by Mortimer J. Adler

How New Will the Better World Be? by Carl L. Becker

They Call It "Purple Heart Valley" by Margaret Bourke-White

Ten Years in Japan by Joseph C. Grew

America Unlimited by Eric A. Johnston

U.S. War Aims by Walter Lippmann

Prejudice: Japanese Americans by Carey McWilliams

Brave Men by Ernest Pyle

Tarawa: The Story of a Battle by Robert Sherrod

People on Our Side by Edgar Snow

Lend-Lease: Weapon of Victory by Edward R. Stettinius

They Shall Not Sleep by Leland Stowe

The Veteran Comes Back by Walter Willard

Time for Decision by Sumner Welles

In the late 1950s and 1960s, there were many books reflecting the civil rights movement and environmental concerns. At that time, there were also many anthropology books suggesting nontraditional social arrangements.

What will people notice looking back at the 2000s?

Some Authors Repeat

As you might expect, some great authors appeared in several lists. Wallace Stegner, John Updike, and Eudora Welty were honored six times each through 1996. The committees always seems to like historians. Arthur M. Schlesinger and Catherine Drinker Bowen each appeared in the lists seven times. The champion of Notable Books was the very famous Sir Winston Churchill, whose books were listed eight times.

Some Subjects Repeat

Just publish a book on Samuel Johnson and you get a Notable Books honor. The same can be said for books about Franklin D. Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt. Margaret Bourke-White not only won for a book that she wrote, two books about her were also named Notable Books. Can you say John Maynard Keynes and Douglas MacArthur twice quickly. Did I mention John F. Kennedy?

Many of the Books Have Lasted

In my checking library catalogs, I found all the books that I checked were still available in Illinois somewhere. Most of the Notable Books of the last fifty years are still in my library's seventy library consortium. From the mid-1950s to the beginning lists, many of the titles that I searched are only available at colleges and universities. Of course, I was searching for the titles that I did not recognize. The more famous titles are available everywhere.

Reflection of Me

I was please to see books that I read on many of the lists from the late 1970s forward. I have often thought I had rather specialized tastes. Maybe I just fit a public librarian profile.

Damn, I was going to take Sam Johnson--but perhaps there's room for two.

The total inconsistency of ALA book lists drives me crazy--the YALSA and ALSC book lists are just as bad. It makes it hard to judge what sort of book you have, as you noted, and it also just looks bad, as though we don't care enough about details--or so it strikes me.

I edited the compilation 50 Years of Notable Books which ALA published (now out of print). What surprised me then (in the 1990s) was that almost 50 per cent of the books were still in print. Some publishers such as Norton and OUP keep their books in print for many years. Sandy Whiteley

Thanks for commenting. I hope you liked the playful look at the lists. It is good to know that at least some publishers try to keep their titles in print. I wonder if ebook versions will be issued for their old titles.

Read On ... Biography

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About Me

I am a reference librarian at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. I have worked in public libraries in Texas, Missouri, and Illinois. I am interested in promoting reference services and the reading of good books.